NAWABSHAH/KARACHI: Former president Asif Ali Zardari has said contesting cases in courts is an art and he knows the art well.

“Cases have to be fought with a cool mind,” said Mr Zardari while addressing workers of the Pakistan Peoples Party in Nawabshah on Saturday.

He said there had always been conspiracies against the PPP and he knew how to foil such conspiracies. He said he had stopped protesting workers from reaching courts on hearings in the past as well, because he knew how to contest cases and win legal battles. He said the PTI government had failed to improve economic condition and in an attempt to hide their failures they were calling everyone thieves. They themselves were “constitutional thieves”, he remarked.

With dollar rates increasing by 40 per cent within less than a year foreign debts and inflation had surged to new heights, Mr Zardari said. The drama of Hamza Shahbaz’s arrest by them all of a sudden was aimed at diverting public attention from their failures as he could have been arrested two days later, he added.

Bilawal says no one will be allowed to cross red lines

It seemed no one was willing to work with this government, the former president said. He recalled that in the five-year rule of the PPP “I took everyone along and compromised whether it was PML-N, PML-Q, Altaf Hussain, Maulana Fazlur Rehman or Balochistan people and did politics as the country needed unity. However, these people [Imran Khan] don’t know anything about politics or governance but only collecting donations.”

“They were trying to keep me away from my workers but they won’t be successful,” he said, asking workers that God forbid, if he was disqualified, they must take care of Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Aseefa.

Reiterating Mr Zardari’s call to topple the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari told reporters in Karachi that his party was left with no political option but to bring Prime Minister Imran Khan and his cabinet down.

After inaugurating the Centre for Autism Rehabilitation and Training Sindh in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, the PPP chairman said: “There are a few red lines, which we have marked.”

“The Constitution of Pakistan, the hard earned democracy and the 18th Amendment which was introduced to serve the people and strengthen the federation through strong provinces are those red lines. If they dare to touch these red lines then we would have no other option but to bring them down,” he said.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari criticised the accountability laws and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for becoming a tool for the ruling party only to victimise its opponents. The strategy, he said, would not last long and the PTI would soon realise that it had trapped itself while conspiring against opposition parties.

“They are against the Sindh government and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) from day one. When they failed to win majority despite all rigging tactics and vandalism, they chose to use NAB, accountability laws and other anti-democratic tactics to target the PPP and its government but they would never meet success,” he said.

He added that the government was using former president Pervez Musharraf’s policies and would meet the same fate.

Earlier, he visited the autism centre, which he said was the biggest facility in South Asia. The centre has a capacity of 300 children and 200 children had already been registered.

“Children with autism have the right to lead a decent life with equal opportunities regarding the provision of education, skill training and rehabilitation services to participate in educational, social, economic, cultural spheres without any discrimination,” said Mr Bhutto-Zardari.

Later, the PPP chairman departed to Dubai for a two-day private visit.

A statement issued by the party said that Mr Bhutto-Zardari would meet Sanam Bhutto and Bakhtawar Bhutto in Dubai.

“Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari will inaugurate the first-ever power generation plant feeding the national grid with indigenous Thar Coal electricity near Islamkot on April 10 and will also address a public meeting in Ghotki on April 12,” it said.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2019